Pampa police present 2024 annual report; racial profiling analysis shows stop demographics align with city makeup

Pampa Police Chief presented the department’s 2024 annual report and the required racial profiling analysis to the Pampa City Commission on Jan. 27, 2025, outlining traffic-stop demographics, enforcement outcomes and training achievements.

The department’s racial profiling analysis showed 4,543 traffic stops in 2024. According to the report, 60–61% of stops were recorded as white, about 34–35% as Hispanic or Latino, and about 4.5% as African American. The department said those percentages “line up the way we want them to be” when measured against the city’s stop data.

Chief said the numbers the department watches most closely are stops that lead to searches or arrests. Of the 4,543 stops, 316 included a search; 156 of those searches were by consent. The report says contraband was discovered in 160 searches, with narcotics found in 116 cases, alcohol in 37 cases and five incidents involving illegal weapons. "I'm very proud of the officers for doing that," the chief said of the demographic distribution in enforcement outcomes.

The report also covered use-of-force, pursuits and collisions. The department recorded 38 uses of force in 2024, down six from the previous year. On traffic-related force incidents, the chief said there was one traffic-stop use-of-force in 2024 that involved bodily injury tied to an officer-involved shooting from the prior spring. The department reported seven pursuits in 2024 — two of which, the chief said, involved assistance to other agencies — and a small net increase in motor-vehicle collisions and injuries compared with 2023.

Other notable metrics: total arrests rose to 780 in 2024 from 704 in 2023; patrol calls for service decreased to 15,391 from 16,827; the criminal investigations division investigated 1,706 reports with a reported clearance rate of just over 71% after excluding unfounded reports; and dispatchers answered 14,457 9-1-1 calls. The chief credited cooperation with schools, churches and community members for part of the reduction in Part I index crimes, which the report said decreased by 25 incidents for an all-time low in the data series presented.

The presentation highlighted training and accreditation milestones. The department continues a Texas Police Chiefs (TPCA) best-practices accreditation program; the chief said Pampa is one of the few agencies in the state to maintain that accreditation and will be recognized at an upcoming police chiefs conference. The department also reported substantial in-house training hours and that 13 officers are certified TCO instructors.

The chief announced the upcoming retirement of Assistant Chief Kenneth Hopson after more than four decades of service. The chief described Hopson’s tenure as “51 years of having a servant’s heart” and said it will be “very, very difficult, if not impossible, to fill his shoes.”

Commissioners asked no follow-up questions during the presentation and the chief invited additional questions after the reports were submitted.

Ending: The report was received by the commission; no formal vote was recorded on the annual report itself during the meeting. The chief made the full report available to commissioners for further review.